Morning sees me still abuzz from Longleat’s creature delights – what a fabulous day. Left to my own devices I would have turned my ticket into a membership and done it all again several times over. And very possibly camped out until I could have a one-on-one giant otter encounter. Sadly on day we went it, it was long since booked.
Himself has other ideas – he’s determined to get on the road on his quest east. It’s this path that finds us at Mottisfont Abbey in the late afternoon for a relatively quick visit. En route we pass Stonehenge being circled by its tourist contingent, looking for all the world like modern druid ceremony.
We visited Mottisfont in 2019 but didn’t have the opportunity to tour the house – just the gardens, which were glorious. Just as well we saw them then. The hot weather has decidedly taken its toll this year. These National Trust properties are normally bathed in greenery. It’s rather sad to see them all brown.
Mottisfont is so named for its natural spring or ‘font’, still producing water today. Early settlers used the font as a meeting point up until an Augustinan priory was founded on site in 1201. The Priory became a pilgrimage stop enroute to Winchester and was said to have held a religious relic – the finger of St John the Baptist. Eeek. I’ve never been comfortable with the Catholic fondness of a human relic.
The Priory bumbled along quite nicely until Henry VIII’s temper tantrum and subsequent dissolution of the monasteries in the 1500s. The site was gifted to a favoured statesman, Sir William Sandys, who turned it into a country home. Unsually, rather than demolish the Priory, Sandys chose to build around it. Evidence of the original Priory remains today, both inside one of the rooms behind a ‘new’ panel (seen below) and in the front of the house where ruins still stand.
For me however the jewel of Mottisfont is its chalk stream. Crystal clear, it provides a fascinating window into fresh water aquatic life. Today we’re treated to trout aplenty, oblivious of their visibility to the outside world.
Enormous trees planted in the 1700s are rather awe inspiring too.
We tour the house to find a display of printing techniques on show. Mottisfont is decorated in the style of a stately home of the 1800s – its latest incarnation.
Try we might, we can’t find the gardens we saw on our last visit. I was particularly looking forward to the roses, for which Mottisfont is renowned. There’s is a lovely walled garden and cottage though and we hear an interesting story from a local picking mulberries which are perfectly ripe at this time of year. Now if anyone has picked a mulberry you’ll know it’s impossible to pluck a right one without staining your hands a rich crimson red. How interesting to learn that this is where the expression ‘caught red-handed’ came from – who knew!
It’s warm day which eventually takes its toll on us both. It’s only on the way out that we realise the formal gardens were beyond the walled garden. Himself in a rare map reading fail. Not best pleased. Oh well, c’est la vie. Perhaps next time?
The print display was fun – many botanical and animal prints feature, using techniques I’ve never heard of. Apparently you can screen print with linoleum and wooden carvings. The patience some artists have.
Day’s end sees us on the edge of Salisbury. That’s an adventure for tomorrow. I would have really liked to have seen that rose garden. *Sigh*
Miss Baci Travels 